<oembed><type>rich</type><version>1.0</version><author_name>npub17w8rw3wtcr03zdsdjhmcj37w0g6l79gsspleltsznexdktv0qw0qd3nc05</author_name><author_url>https://nostr.ae/npub17w8rw3wtcr03zdsdjhmcj37w0g6l79gsspleltsznexdktv0qw0qd3nc05</author_url><provider_name>njump</provider_name><provider_url>https://nostr.ae</provider_url><html>📅 Original date posted:2017-04-08&#xA;📝 Original message:Pavel,&#xA;&#xA;Until all miners update (firmware or hardware), the change encourages&#xA;&gt; large difference in mining efficiency. And IMO it gives another&#xA;&gt; advantage to large mining operations in general.&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&#xA;Certainly, there would have to be changes for stratum, pool software, etc.&#xA;But the monetary incentives align to all the changes needed.&#xA;&#xA;Remember, overt ASICBoost can get something like a 12.5% efficiency boost&#xA;from toggling a single bit in the version (equivalent to 2 colliding work&#xA;items), 18.5% from 2 bits (equivalent to 4 colliding work items), 23.4%&#xA;from 4 bits (see https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1604/1604.00575.pdf).&#xA;In lieu of an explicit allowance of overt ASICBoost, the monetary&#xA;incentives lead to odd BIP9 signaling, especially if 4 or more proposals&#xA;signal at once. There really isn&#39;t a practical way to block overt ASICBoost&#xA;without forcing the version bits to be some value.&#xA;&#xA;In other words, the question isn&#39;t about allowing/disallowing ASICBoost at&#xA;this point. The question is whether we want ASICBoost open or hidden.&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&gt; You make a strong assumption that the new optimization is not&#xA;&gt; compatible with overt ASICBoost. If it is compatible, ASICBoost&#xA;&gt; doesn&#39;t help you with &#34;defending against&#34; the new optimization at all.&#xA;&gt; And it can be the case that the new optimization is based on ASICBoost&#xA;&gt; so you can make the situation &#34;worse&#34; by allowing it.&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&#xA;This would only be the case if overt ASICBoost were not possible at all. It&#xA;is currently possible to use overt ASICBoost, so optimizations based on&#xA;overt ASICBoost would also be possible unless something were done to&#xA;actively block it.&#xA;&#xA;&gt; Certainly, if only one company made use of the extra nonce space, they&#xA;&gt; would have an advantage.&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&gt; Can you explain why the reality should be significantly different? In&#xA;&gt; sufficiently near future.&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;Market incentives, I would imagine. How quickly that would be is not&#xA;something I&#39;m qualified to answer.&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;&gt; We don&#39;t have to deal with any such theoretical situation now. You&#xA;&gt; proposal goes in opposite direction, by adding support for patented&#xA;&gt; algorithm. I don&#39;t know myself what the possible legal implications&#xA;&gt; are (maybe only for a subset of miners) so I consider it as an&#xA;&gt; unnecessary risk. At least before some conclusive legal analysis says&#xA;&gt; differently.&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&#xA;I&#39;m not adding support as much as explicitly allowing what&#39;s implicitly&#xA;allowed. Whatever risks you imagine for this proposal exist on the network&#xA;currently, with unmodified BIP-141 and with modified BIP-141. The&#xA;difference in adding the modification is that overt ASICBoost is explicitly&#xA;allowed in the modified BIP-141 as to not hide it.&#xA;&#xA;Jimmy&#xA;-------------- next part --------------&#xA;An HTML attachment was scrubbed...&#xA;URL: &lt;http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20170408/14268b35/attachment.html&gt;</html></oembed>